If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Sometimes! But it is simply a matter of training if you don't want dogs to engage in this very normal behaviour -- just distract and give her something else to do.

For anyone who thinks girls do not do this or that it is only a 'neutered girl or intact male' issue -- I was just visiting a breeder friend with several intact males and females and the males hardly did any humping behaviour at all (except one case in which the real thing was required with a girlfriend! ). But the intact females were doing this ALL the time, a few times in a chain of three girls in a row (which inspired me to sing "Do the Locomotion" at them). So go figure.

So in summary -- this is very much a training issue. But at the same time, puppies tend to hump a lot -- especially as they reach adolescence and have a lot of hormones flowing around, either male or female. Puppies play fight too and rehearse and learn a lot of adult behaviours as puppies. Like most behaviours that we may not want a dog living inside with us to do all the time (eg chewing, marking, barking) it is very normal. The responsibility is with us to kindly modify those behaviours so that we get the dog we wish to live with.

Most dogs will hump a lot less or not at all once neutered. My only humper out of four dogs is Lily and then, she is only enamoured of throw pillows on the couch .

But the intact females were doing this ALL the time, a few times in a chain of three girls in a row (which inspired me to sing "Do the Locomotion" at them). .

Thanks for the laugh this morning Karlin. That struck me as funny!

As far as humping, my malamute mix (spayed) does this to my male dogs. It is her way of saying "f*%# you", I think. If they make her mad (get more attention than her, bump into her, simply annoy her by barking close to her ear) she will hop on and humiliate them. It is pretty funny.

And this work swimmingly until they're out of your sight... then they're still going to hump.

That can certainly be true! -- but which doesn't matter, I think, as the point would be for most people that you don't want them doing this in public, as 'twere. And Lily certainly goes for the pillows if I am not looking as I catch her mid-act all the time, or the pillows thrown to the floor after she has had her nasty way with them. But if the humping is something that can instigate a fight -- eg it is one dog doing it as a more aggressive behaviour or to prove it is more important than others as can definitely be the case -- then I would never leave those dogs out of sight and together anyway. They'd be separated.

Personally, I think a lot of humping that gets taken as dogs trying to show rank (eg dominance) is really just dogs getting overexcited or playing around. I had my two neutered boys around the intact dogs and a few tried to mount and got an earful and a hard stare, especially from Leo. They all stopped the second either dog reacted. Now, if this was truly an attempt to show 'dominance' then none of these dogs, including some intact males nearly twice Leo's size, succeeded.

Yet Leo and Jaspar are not dominant types, nor are they challenging types, indeed Jaspar is often quite submissive. They have never fought with any dog except each other (rarely). To me this suggests yet again that dominance is extremely poorly understood, easy to misinterpret as is 'pack behaviour', and that sometimes rude behaviour is just rude behaviour and a dog will tell another off for being a pest. Indeed a couple of us had a bit of a laugh at the way in which the bigger intact stud dogs all cowered a bit and backed off from Leo (who weighs all of 15 lbs, or about 6.5 kg) immediately. I don't know who was the alpha dog(s) in that group of six stud boys, but none tried to 'punish' Leo for inappropriate behaviour, none did an 'alpha roll', none barked or snapped or otherwise attempted to show 'firm leadership'. Whoever was the top dog in that group was a typical benign dg leader who did the dog equivalent of saying 'yep -- sorry about that pal -- we were a bit rude! We'll leave you alone now' ). Lots of indications there about how wrong it is to base training on corrections, assumptions about needing to be pack leaders, and needing to show dogs they shouldn't be 'dominant'.

Maybe I will get some T's- if they do get shouted at its because Joel get embarased by them - he must think people will think he is gay (not that there is anything wrong with being gay - being politically correct!)